The Federal Con­stitution will have to be amended if Muslims are not accorded religious freedom, said Kita president Datuk Zaid Ibrahim.

He said if Kita were to be the Federal Government, it would refer Article 11, which safeguards religious free­­­­­­dom, to the Constitutional Court to decide whether it also applied to Muslims.

“If the court rules that the intent of Article 11 is not to accord religious freedom to Muslims and that Malaysia is in fact an Islamic state, then we would need to amend the Federal Constitution to insert an all empowering Article (such as in Iran) that states that all laws must conform to the Quran and that laws contravening Islamic tenets and practices would be void,” he said in a statement yesterday.

He said Islamic tenets and practices, in this case, would be those that were approved by the Con­ference of Rulers.

However, he said, if the court were to hold that Article 11 applied to Muslims as well, then they would not need to hide in church premises to exercise their beliefs.

“Agencies such as the Selangor Islamic Religious Department will not need the power to trespass and ransack private properties to look for possible converts,” he said.

He said Kita, which would fearlessly defend Article 11, believed that religious freedom belonged to everyone.